After long hours of reflection, EU Foreign Ministers have expressed their commitment to abstaining from exporting any weaponry to that country until August 1st, when more talks on the issue are scheduled to take place. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton admitted that Member States further had diverging opinions, but that shouldn’t challenge the unity of the community foreign policy.

Catherine Ashton: “What I saw around the table and the reason it went on for so long was a strong desire for the European Union to come together and put together the position that I’ve read out to you. Now within that, you’re quite right to point to the fact that Member States may take different decisions, but doesn’t mean that we’ve lost the capacity to have a common policy”.

Concerns regarding Syria have also been voiced within the North-Atlantic Alliance, which doesn’t rule out its involvement in peacemaking operations, even though an intervention is out of the question at present. Romania’s ambassador to NATO Sorin Ducaru, who is also due to take charge of security risks within the alliance, told us more.

Sorin Ducaru: “As the NATO Secretary General said upon his latest visit to Romania, a military intervention in Syria is not on the table. If the UN Security Council did however issue a resolution to contain the crisis or to prevent the proliferation of weapons we know to exist in Syria, of course an intervention would be a solution under these circumstances. We have not reached that point yet and everyone still hopes for a political solution to the crisis in Syria, which has already resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people, all that even without the massive use of weapons of mass destruction. Surely, there is periodic reporting on the potential use of such weapons, but the important thing right now is for the international community to channel all its efforts towards working out a political solution and subsequently clarifying and safeguarding the regime of weapons of mass destruction, be they chemical or biological”.

International Cabinets are now preparing for the forthcoming summit due in Geneva in June, upon the initiative of Russia and the United States. On Monday in Paris US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov to discuss the agenda of the summit. They are attempting to secure the participation of representatives of both Syrian authorities and rebels in the negotiations.